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Monday, 4 April 2011

Clashes in Yemen as protesters start to march forward

-Clashes in Yemen as protesters try to march forward not only keep in their sit-in places in Taiz, Hudeida, Aden and Sana’a.

-Sana’a protesters are bracing for marches this afternoon.

At least three protesters were killed and tens others injured Monday when security forces tried to prevent angry protesters from storming the Presidential Palace and the government buildings of the local authority of Taiz province.

The sources, who are participating in the marches, said the clashes are continuing as protesters are insisting on marching and surrounding the government buildings. “I myself saw one protester dead in the hospital,” said Riyadh Al Adeeb, journalist and activist in Taiz.

In coastal city of Hudieda in the west of the country, clashes between security forces and angry protesters are also continuing.

“The new thing today and yesterday is that the protesters are marching in the streets and not sitting in their sit-in places,” the protester Abdul Hafez Al Nehari, one of the leading protesters in Hudeida, said. “About 400 were injured by the tear gas used by the security forces today and yesterday,” Al Nehari added. The protesters seem to be planning for marching forward and surrounding the important government buildings, in an escalation step to press Saleh to step down.On Sunday April 3, 2011, more than hundred were slightly injured when security forces used tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who tried to do the first march of this kind to the buildings compound of the local government in Taiz city.

One hour before this march, hundreds of women, only women, did a similar march in the same streets and returned peacefully to their sit-in square in Safer, Taiz city. In Sana’a, hundreds of teachers were stopped by the defected army from implementing a march from the sit-in square nearby the university to the cabinet buildings.

“The army soldiers of general Ali Muhsen prevented the teachers from marching to the cabinet for their safety,” Said Adel Abdu Arrabyee, member of the media committee of the young people in the sit-in square at the gate of Sana’a university. The army of general Ali Muhsen, who declared earlier last month his support for a peaceful revolution against Saleh, are surrounding the protesters nearby the university from all directions.

“The soldiers also told the teachers that the president Saleh loyal security forces and republican guards will shoot at them if they march,” Arrabyee added. In Aden the protesters have been trying over the last few days to implement and call for a civil disobedience in the city.